Feed n-1

by Mira Grant

  Ignoring the shouts from the intercom, Shaun finished sliding out of the car, blowing a kiss back toward the agitated shape of Andres before slamming the door and following me to the air lock. True to expectations, Andres remained seated, mouth moving as he swore at us through the glass.

  “Nobody who cares that much about security is going to come out into the open with a possible infection,” I said, taking Shaun’s hand in my left, swinging Lois’s carrier in my right. She yowled, punctuating the statement. “We’re dangerous.”

  “Man thought he could make us do this separately,” said Shaun. Taking the still-yowling Lois from me, he slid the carrier into the luggage hatch. The sensors would record the fact that the box contained a living thing, but they would also record its weight. Lois was too small for amplification and would slide straight through. “Man’s an idiot.”

  “No, he’s an amateur,” I said, moving into position in front of the blood testing panel. I raised my right hand. Shaun stepped into position next to me and raised his left. “One…”

  “Two.”

  We pressed our palms flat.

  Steve was waiting on the other side of the air lock, shaking his head. “You probably just scared Agent Rodriguez out of a year of his life,” he scolded, without conviction.

  “Given that Agent Rodriguez just annoyed me out of a year of my life, I’d say we’re even,” I said, retrieving Lois from the luggage bin. “Do we need to wait on him, or can you show us to our rooms?”

  “And our van,” Shaun said. “You promised me our van.”

  “Your van is in the parking garage, along with Georgia’s bike,” Steve said. Fishing two small plastic rectangles out of his jacket pocket, he passed them to us. “Shaun, you’re in room two-fourteen. Georgia, you’re in room two-seventeen.”

  We exchanged a look. “Those don’t sound adjoining,” I said.

  “Originally, you were going to be sharing a room with Ms. Meissonier, Georgia, while Shaun and Mr. Cousins shared a room down the hall,” Steve said. “It seemed best to let you keep your privacy, given recent… events.”

  “Right.” Shaun handed his key back to Steve. “I’ll just stalk along with George until you can get me my own key. Rick and Lois can have some valuable alone time to re-bond after their separation.” As if on cue, Lois yowled.

  Steve’s eyebrows arched upward. “You two would rather share a room?”

  His expression was a familiar one. We’ve been seeing it from teachers, friends, colleagues, and hotel concierges since we hit puberty. It’s the “you’d rather share a room with your opposite-gender sibling than sleep alone?” face, and it never fails to irritate me. Social norms can bite me. If I need to have someone guarding my back when the living dead show up to make my life more interesting than I want it to be, I want that someone to be Shaun. He’s a light sleeper, and I know he can aim.

  “Yes,” I said, firmly. “We two would rather share a room.”

  For a moment, Steve looked like he might argue. Then he shrugged, dismissing it as none of his business, and said, “I’ll have them send up a second key and get your luggage moved. Georgia, all your things and the equipment that you had marked as vital are already in your room.”

  That meant they’d been searched—standard security—but I didn’t particularly care. I make it a rule never to keep sensitive data unencrypted where other people might get at it. If Senator Ryman’s security detail wanted to waste their time looking for answers in my underpants, they could be my guests. “Excellent. We’ll just head for our room, then, if you don’t mind? Assuming you don’t feel the need to accompany us.”

  “I’m going to trust the two of you not to get yourselves killed between here and the elevator,” said Steve.

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I said. Shaun snapped a salute and we walked away, Lois still yowling, to follow the wall-mounted signs leading us to the elevators in the lobby.

  The hotel was old enough that the elevators still ran up and down in fixed shafts. It would have been an interesting novelty if I hadn’t been so wired and exhausted. As it was, I stared at the mirrors on the walls, trying to ignore my growing headache and the increasingly fevered pitch of Lois’s complaints. She wanted out of the box, and she wanted out now. I understood the sentiment.

  Our hotel room was as old as the elevator, with hideous wallpaper striped in yellow, green, and brown, and a steel-reinforced window looking out over the central courtyard. Sunlight reflecting off the pool three floors down turned the water into a giant flare of light, shining directly through our window. I whimpered involuntarily, whipping my face around and squeezing my eyes shut. Shaun shoved past me to close the blackout curtains, and I stumbled blind into the room, letting the door swing closed.

  The lights were off, and when Shaun got the curtains fastened the room was plunged into blessed darkness. He walked back across the room, putting a hand on my elbow. “It’s safe now,” he said. “The beds are this way.”

  “That was a rotten trick,” I complained, and let him guide me.

  “But funny.”

  “Not funny.”

  “I’m laughing.”

  “I know where you’re planning to sleep tonight.”

  “And yet somehow, still funny.” He stopped walking, pushing down on my shoulder as he took the cat carrier out of my hands. “Sit. I’ll get things set up.”

  “Don’t forget the EMP screen,” I said, settling on the bed and flopping backward. The mattress was younger than the décor. I bounced. “And get the servers up.”

  “I have done this before,” said Shaun. The amusement was evident in his tone, but it wasn’t enough to conceal the concern. “You look like hell.”

  “You can tell that with the lights off?”

  “You looked like hell before the evil day star punched you in the face. Now you look like hell in a darkened room. Easier on the eyes, no less hellish.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything before?”

  “We were surrounded by people, and you were getting your bitchy-and-thwarted on. It didn’t seem appropriate.” Rattling noises marked his passage across the room, followed by a thump and the sound of a lightbulb being unscrewed. “I’m swapping the bulbs in the bedside lights.”

  “Thanks.”

  “No worries. You’re more pleasant when you haven’t got a migraine.”

  “In that case, toss me my big painkillers when you’re done with that?”

  There was a pause. “You actually want them?”

  “I’m going to need them after we talk.” I take a lot of generic drugs for the headaches my eyes give me. That’s not the same thing as my “big painkillers,” a nasty narcotic mix of ergot alkaloid, codeine, caffeine, and a few less-pronounceable chemical agents. They kill the pain. They also kill all higher brain functions for at least six hours after I’ve taken them. I avoid drugging myself whenever possible, because I don’t usually have the time to waste, but I was getting the feeling this might be the last “free” time we were going to have for a while. If spending it drugged out of my mind meant I had the stamina to handle the rest, well, I’ve done worse in my pursuit of the truth.

  “Georgia—”

  “Don’t argue.”

  “I was just going to say that there’s time for a nap before we talk, if you want it, and painkillers after that. The Daughters of the American Revolution always talk for hours.”

  “No, there isn’t. We ran out of time when someone decided we’d outlived our usefulness. Time is now officially something we don’t have. Hit the lights as soon as you’re ready.”

  “Right,” said Shaun. There was a click. The room brightened before I heard him move away again. “Servers need to initialize, and I’ll turn on the screens. Your computer’s on the desk if you want to get it hooked up.”

  “Got it.” My headache screamed when I opened my eyes. I ignored it. The lower-wattage bulbs Shaun put in were bearable, if not exactly pleasant; I could deal. Sitting up, I bent forward t
o open the cat carrier, which was still sitting on the floor near the base of the bed. Lois was out in a flash, vanishing into the bathroom.

  I rose and walked over to take a seat at my desk, where I started connecting cables. I was moving gingerly, to upset my head as little as possible, and that slowed me down; I was only halfway done when Shaun called, “Clear.” I put down the plug I’d been holding, and the air filled with an electrical buzz that made all the hair on my arms stand on end.

  “You’d better have that set low enough not to fry anything,” I said, going back to work.

  “What do you take me for, an amateur?” Shaun was trying to sound affronted. I wasn’t buying it. It’s easy to slip when you’re setting up a privacy screen—that’s part of why I’m not fond of using them. They also make my teeth itch. “It’ll short out anything around the perimeter, but as long as you don’t get any closer to the walls, you’ll be fine.”

  “If you’re wrong, you owe me dinner.”

  “If I’m right, you owe me dessert.”

  “Deal.” I swiveled in my chair. Shaun was sitting on the bed, leaning back on his hands in a pose of such sheer relaxation that it had to be forced. Skipping the preamble, I said, “Buffy sold us out, and someone tried to kill us.”

  “I got that.”

  “Did you get the part where, legally, we were dead as soon as the CDC got the call saying we were infected?”

  “I did.” Shaun frowned. “I’m surprised they didn’t come in shooting.”

  “Call that the last of our luck,” I said. “The way I see it, they weren’t just gunning for Buffy. If they were, they wouldn’t have bothered calling the CDC after they saw her truck go down. Horrible accident, very tragic, but there’s no need to do that sort of mopping up.”

  “Makes sense,” Shaun said and flopped over backward. “So what do we do? Pack our things and go running home?”

  “That might not work, since presumably we already know something that’s worth killing us for.”

  “Or Buffy knew something worth killing us for.”

  “Whoever’s behind this has already proven that it’s the same thing. I can’t imagine we’ve got two conspiracies running in parallel. That means whoever had our tires shot out was also responsible for the ranch.”

  “And for Eakly,” said Shaun. “Don’t you dare forget Eakly.”

  “I wouldn’t,” I said. “I can’t.”

  “I dream about Eakly.” The statement was almost offhanded, but there was a depth of hurt to it that surprised even me, and I usually know what Shaun’s thinking. “They never saw it coming. They never had a chance.”

  “So leaving isn’t an option.”

  “Leaving never was.”

  “What are we going to do about Rick?”

  “Keep him on, of course.”

  Raising my eyebrows, I leaned forward to rest my elbows on my knees. “There was no hesitation there. Why not?”

  “Don’t be an idiot.” Shaun sat up, falling into a posture that was the natural mirror image of my own. “Buffy got bit, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Buffy was dying—that’s not right. Buffy was dead, and she knew it. She told us what she’d done and how to find out more about it, right? Rick was there, and she didn’t finger him for a snitch. She was sorry for what she’d done, George. She didn’t mean for anyone to die. So why would she’ve gone and left us with a cuckoo in our birdhouse?”

  “What if she didn’t know?”

  “What if?” Shaun shook his head. “They tried to kill Rick, too. If his car was a little less reinforced, or if he’d hit at a slightly different angle, he’d have been a goner. There’s no way to stage that. And the call to the CDC said we were all toast, not just the two of us. So what if Buffy didn’t know? Rick’s not a moron. He’d have said something by now.”

  “So you say he stays.”

  “I say we can’t afford to lose anyone else. And I also say that with Buffy gone, I’m an equal partner in this enterprise, so get up.”

  I blinked. “What?”

  “Get up.” Shaun stood and pointed to the bed. “You’re going to take a nap, and you’re going to do it right now.”

  “I can’t nap. I’m waiting for Mahir to call me back.”

  “He can talk to your voice mail.”

  “No. He can’t.”

  “Georgia—”

  “Just wait.”

  “No.” Shaun’s voice was firm. “I’ll get the rest of the equipment set up, I’ll get the servers running, and I’ll check your caller ID every time your phone rings. If Mahir calls, I’ll wake you, without consideration for the fact that you’re going to work yourself to death. I’m agreeing to that, but I’m also making an executive decision, and my decision is that you, Georgia Carolyn Mason, are going to bed. If you do not like this decision, you may appeal to the court of me hitting you in the back of the head as soon as you turn around.”

  “Can I have my painkillers?”

  “You can have two pills and a pillow,” Shaun said. “When you wake up, the world will be a magical wonderland of candy canes, unicorns, and fully assembled servers. And Rick stays. Deal?”

  “Deal.” I stood, stepping out of my shoes before sitting back down on the bed. “Bastard.”

  “Close your eyes.” I did. Shaun removed my sunglasses, pressing two small round objects into my hand. “Swallow those and you can have these back when you wake up.”

  “That’s dirty pool,” I complained, popping the pills into my mouth. They dissolved almost instantly, leaving the bitter taste of codeine behind. I wobbled and let myself fall sideways, eyes still closed. “Dirty pool player.”

  “That’s me.” Shaun kissed my forehead. “Rest, George. It’ll be better when you wake up.”

  “No, it won’t,” I said, resigning myself to the inevitable. “It’ll just be later. Later isn’t better. Later is just when we have less time.”

  “Sleep,” said Shaun.

  So I did.

  * * *

  This is the truth: We are a nation accustomed to being afraid. If I’m being honest, not just with you but with myself, it’s not just the nation, and it’s not just something we’ve grown used to. It’s the world, and it’s an addiction. People crave fear. Fear justifies everything. Fear makes it okay to have surrendered freedom after freedom, until our every move is tracked and recorded in a dozen databases the average man will never have access to. Fear creates, defines, and shapes our world, and without it, most of us would have no idea what to do with ourselves.

  Our ancestors dreamed of a world without boundaries, while we dream new boundaries to put around our homes, our children, and ourselves. We limit our potential day after day in the name of a safety that we refuse to ever achieve. We took a world that was huge with possibility, and we made it as small as we could.

  Feeling safe yet?

  —From Images May Disturb You, the blog of Georgia Mason, April 6, 2040

  Twenty-one

  I awoke to the sound of Rick and Shaun arguing quietly, undercut by the comforting static buzz of servers and computers; true to his word, Shaun had managed to get the network up and running while I slept. I stretched experimentally and was pleased to discover that my head neither hurt nor felt like it was stuffed with medicated cotton wool. I’d live. I’d pay for it later—my headaches come from minor damage to the optical nerves, and the more I use artificial stimulants to ignore it, the more likely it becomes that the damage will be permanent—but I’d live.

  “—telling you, we’re letting her sleep until she wakes up. Work on your report.”

  “It’s the Daughters of the American Revolution. They haven’t said anything new since the American Revolution.”

  “So it should be an easy report.”

  “Asshole.”

  “Hey, man, I just want you to do your job and let my sister get some sleep. Is that so wrong?”

  “Right now? Yes.”

  “Pet your cat and finish your rep
ort.” Shaun sounded exhausted. I wondered how long I’d been asleep, lost in my dreamless, drug-induced wonderland while he wrangled the servers and waited for Mahir to call.

  I must have sighed because I heard footsteps. The mattress bowed as Shaun leaned against the edge, asking, anxiously, “George? Did you want something?”

  Another eight hours of sleep, replacement eyes, and Buffy back from the dead. Since I wasn’t likely to get any of the things I really wanted, I sighed and answered, “My sunglasses?” My voice was dry and scratchy. I turned my face toward Shaun, my eyes still closed and eyebrows raised in silent punctuation to the question.

  He touched my hand with the tips of his fingers before he pressed my sunglasses against my palm, saying, “You’ve been out for about ten hours. I’ve tried Mahir three times, but there’s been no response. Becks says she spoke to him after we did, when she had to request a delete and re-upload of some of her journal files, but that’s the last time stamp anybody has.”

  Becks…? Oh, Rebecca Atherton, the Newsie he stole from me after things went wrong in Eakly. I slipped my sunglasses on and opened my eyes, taking a moment to orient myself before sitting up. Getting my eyes to focus took a little longer. Shaun put a hand on my knee, steadying me, and I covered it with my own, turning my still blurry eyes toward the distant glow of the computers against the far wall. There was a patch of blobby darkness there that looked out of place against the green, and I nodded to it, saying, “Hey, Rick.”

  “Hey, Georgia,” the blob replied. “Feeling any better?”

  “I’m half-blind, and it feels like a flock of seagulls crapped inside my head, but it doesn’t hurt, so I guess I’ll live.” I squeezed Shaun’s hand. “How was the DAR meeting?”

  “Boring.”

  “Good. At least something in this world can be counted on to stay dull.” My eyes were starting to work. The blob had a head now. “You planning on sticking around, or do we need to post your job opening, too?”

  Rick paused. “Shaun said you’d already discussed it.”

  “The two of us, yes. The three of us? Not so much.” I shrugged. “I figured you should get a say. You plan to stick around? We’re not doing so well on the survival figures, I’m afraid. One out of four sort of sucks.”